Relations with US improving

Tracy Watkins reports:

The United States is signalling a deeper relationship with New Zealand, including a step-up in military training and exercises between the two countries.

Is that a primal scream I hear from Keith Locke?

“When [US] President [Barack] Obama came to power with Secretary [of State Hillary] Clinton together [they] took a number of bilateral reviews and one of those at the top of the list was New Zealand … I think there is a recognition that this is a relationship that was underperforming.”

What had come through “resoundingly” in the review was that it was “profoundly in American interests to take the relationship with New Zealand to the next level, maybe the next two levels.”

So if we were very very very very good friends, does this mean we are now very, very, very, very, very very good friends?

But a widely anticipated White House visit by Prime Minister John Key now looks unlikely till next year.

Campbell said Key had been a “big hit” in Washington at the Nuclear Security Summit this year but he was unable to give a commitment about any meeting between him and President Barack Obama in Washington.

They’re called mid-terms. Obama will be busy until they are out of the way.